Things are going well with you. You have escaped from “the track”, so to
speak, and are in a snug, comfortable little billet in the city. Well,
while doing the block you run against an old mate of other days--VERY
other days--call him Jack Ellis. Things have gone hard with Jack. He
knows you at once, but makes no advance towards a greeting; he acts as
though he thinks you might cut him--which, of course, if you are a true
mate, you have not the slightest intention of doing. His coat is yellow
and frayed, his hat is battered and green, his trousers “gone” in
various places, his linen very cloudy, and his boots burst and innocent
of polish. You try not to notice these things--or rather, not to seem
to notice them--but you cannot help doing so, and you are afraid he'll
notice that you see these things, and put a wrong construction on it.
How men will misunderstand each other! You greet him with more than the
necessary enthusiasm. In your anxiety to set him at his ease and make
him believe that nothing--not even money--can make a difference in your
friendship, you over-act the business; and presently you are afraid that
he'll notice that too, and put a wrong construction on it. You wish that
your collar was not so clean, nor your clothes so new. Had you known you
would meet him, you would have put on some old clothes for the occasion.
You are both embarrassed, but it is YOU who feel ashamed--you are
almost afraid to look at him lest he'll think you are looking at his
shabbiness. You ask him in to have a drink, but he doesn't respond
so heartily as you wish, as he did in the old days; he doesn't like
drinking with anybody when he isn't “fixed”, as he calls it--when he
can't shout.
It didn't matter in the old days who held the money so long as there was
plenty of “stuff” in the camp. You think of the days when Jack stuck to
you through thick and thin. You would like to give him money now, but
he is so proud; he always was; he makes you mad with his beastly pride.
There wasn't any pride of that sort on the track or in the camp in
those days; but times have changed--your lives have drifted too widely
apart--you have taken different tracks since then; and Jack, without
intending to, makes you feel that it is so.
You have a drink, but it isn't a success; it falls flat, as far as Jack
is concerned; he won't have another; he doesn't “feel on”, and presently
he escapes under plea of an engagement, and promises to see you again.
And you wish that the time was come when no one could have more or less
to spend than another.
. . . . .
P.S.--I met an old mate of that description once, and so successfully
persuaded him out of his beastly pride that he borrowed two pounds off
me till Monday. I never got it back since, and I want it badly at
the present time. In future I'll leave old mates with their pride
unimpaired.